The Agenda: The NH legislative session preview

Welcome to another installment of "The Agenda", which appears every morning of session day with news, analysis and fun features about the State House. Send tips and feedback by replying to this email.

On The Agenda today: The House meets today at 10 a.m. The Senate is meeting Thursday at 10 a.m.

So was it Medicaid expansion or something else?

First there was the deal between state Senate Republicans and Democrats to give health insurance to some of the state’s poorest residents, and now there is the politics. Democrats are calling the deal "Medicaid expansion" and so is the press and the Republican base. The only people, it seems, who aren’t calling it Medicaid expansion are the Senate Republican leadership.

Pushing back on the labeling, Senate President Chuck Morse sent a personal e-mail to Republican activists to make his case. The e-mail subject line was “Senate Health Care Proposal.”

Here is the meat of his argument:

The Republican Senate Plan will address these issues based on the conservative principles of state sovereignty, taxpayer protection, and personal responsibility we all agree upon. Because we stood firm behind these principles, making it clear to Democrats that they would be required in any plan, Gov. Hassan and Senate Democrats have finally agreed that the Republican plan is the best way forward.

Some may argue our plan is ObamaCare or Medicaid in disguise. I would disagree, and here’s why:

ObamaCare is an expensive and unworkable federal mandate, with Washington dictating the terms to New Hampshire. The Senate Plan is a New Hampshire solution that addresses our health care needs while protecting taxpayers and requiring Washington accept our terms. If the federal government will not grant the waivers to allow us to implement the plan as we have designed it, the program will end.

Medicaid Expansion would have increased the state's Medicaid rolls by over 50,000 people and granted them access to a lifelong entitlement funded by NH taxpayers. The Senate Plan is not an entitlement (in fact beneficiaries must acknowledge that they are not permanently eligible), it will not increase the number of people on Medicaid, and it will end when federal funding drops below 100%.

Medicaid is a massive federal program that offers poor quality government health care to its beneficiaries. The Senate Plan is a strictly controlled pilot program that uses federal funds to assist low-income New Hampshire citizens purchase high-quality health insurance through the private market; an approach favored by conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation.

Medicaid is a single-payer government program. The Senate Plan will increase competition in the New Hampshire's private insurance market by creating new customers and encouraging additional companies to enter the market, thus improving choice and reducing costs for everyone.

Medicaid Expansion is a cornerstone of ObamaCare and an important policy goal for Democrats in New Hampshire and across the country, which is why Governor Hassan, a number of media outlets, and others are re-labeling the Senate Plan and calling it a victory, despite the fact it bears no resemblance to the big government mandate they would prefer.

The death of New Hampshire’s death penalty?

A House committee on Tuesday endorsed a plan to repeal the death penalty in New Hampshire.

Three years ago, New Hampshire expanded its death penalty statute to include the crime of murder during a home invasion. It was largely in response to the slaying of Mont Vernon mother Kimberly Cates.

But by a wider margin than expected, the House Committee on Criminal Justice on Tuesday voted to repeal the death penalty, a first for the committee.

It was a satisfying day for the bill's sponsor, Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, a long-time advocate of abolishing capital punishment.

"This has been a long process," he said. "We still have a ways to go, but I think it's a time to be hopeful, and I think New Hampshire is going to join the rest of the rest of the world and declare the death penalty is a human rights violation."

New Hampshire has one inmate on death row, Michael Addison, who was convicted of killing Manchester police Officer Michael Briggs. Addison's sentence would not be affected by the bill, which is not retroactive.